The White Serpent by Tanith Lee

Author:Tanith Lee [Tanith Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780886772673
Publisher: DAW
Published: 1988-04-05T10:51:39+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

FALSE MAGIC

Zastis vanished on the first lap of the journey. Arud told her in the tent that night he would slough her at the next village prosperous enough to buy. "You'll be able to escape from such a spot with ease."

"Where should I go," she said, "in this rocky dust-platter of a land?"

"Better now than later. The villages and the rocks are worse where I'm going."

"Why not manumit me?" said Panduv, teasingly. "You paid the temple nothing for me."

"No, you haven't walked sufficient miles over the stones. I vowed it to Cah, to punish you. And you know if you run away from me, those outriders will soon get you back. They'd enjoy it. And then-"

"I adore you," said Panduv. "I would never run away from you."

Both of them laughed. It was a malign game, perilous-to Arud much more than to his slave. For there were chances now, to cut his throat in the darkness, to sprint away before the hue and cry was up. But, as she said, the land did not invite. Its tracks were channels of powder and its rivers thin runnels of spit. Ahead, the mountains were now in view, static brown upheavals going to distant mauve. She had exchanged one prison for another, but this at least was in the open air. Walking much of the day-despite his words, he afforded her now and then use of a zeeba, to the outriders' disapproval-was exercise she valued. At their halts, too, she exercised and sometimes she danced for him, once even with a pair of lighted torches, though naked, for her clothing was a utility, not to be burnt. Arud marveled. He would not, being a son of Iscah, praise her, but he called on Cah over and over. Despite this, Panduv found herself rusty, her genius already withering. She had expected nothing else. Even so, it made her rage. It was a stormy session that night upon his blanket.

Before his servants, and in the villages, she adopted the decreed stance of the Iscaian female. She did not want to exacerbate him. Besides, coming to a mild fondness for him, she did not, either, wish to cause him embarrassment.

On her freedom, she had developed some awkwardness of thinking. She never had been free, she must acknowledge that. Perhaps slavery, although she had never formerly thought herself a slave, was now ingrained. If she ran from Arud, as she had said, to what should she run? It was more simple to remain with him. Too simple, maybe. But eventually life itself would show her the way. He would sell her, or dismiss her-at liberty. Or his enthrallment would go on, she would accompany him through the mountains and back down again, to the capital. And then, surely, something must occur, to wrench her loose, to employ her.

She would never move in the verity of the fire dance again.

She would never be "the Hanassian."

Meticulous in diet and exercise, in the city she had had five or six

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